Tempted Tigress (13 page)

In time, she gave up. Her thought was for food—only food. Until the sounds began to recede and the children pulled away. At first she was grateful for the room to move without tripping over little bodies. But then the girl in her arms was snatched away and all was abruptly silent.

She looked up in confusion, her thoughts on sizzling dumplings. She saw instead three men. They were different than the peasants. Better weapons—well-oiled swords and heavy fists. Better fed—broad shoulders and thick muscles. And worst of all, better resistance to any manipulation she could find. These were hardened men who responded to two things: force or money, and she had neither.

So she ran. She didn't even stop to think. She simply took off running as fast and as far as she could. But her skirts were tight, her footing unstable, and there was a child in the way.

She swerved. She stumbled. And she was caught.

From Anna Marie Thompson's journal

December 16, 1881

I found the ship. I found Father's ship, and they were really nice to me. I'm
going to be on bread and water for a month, but it was worth it.

I escaped just like I planned. It was so easy! And then I got a rickshaw and went to the docks. It took a long, long time to find the boat, but it helps that I can speak both English and Chinese. There's always someone who needs help translating. Even the rickshaw runners will give me a free ride if I help them get a rich white customer.

It took a long time to find the right ship. And then they caught me sneaking on board.
A couple of the sailors were really mean. They were going to throw me overboard, but the captain stopped them. He was kind, especially when I remembered his name. I told him I was looking for my father, that I had to speak to him. That I was Frank Thompson's daughter and I had to find him. Then he asked me into his quarters to talk, even gave me some hard biscuits to eat.

That's when he told me about my father. I didn't believe him at first. Everybody lies. But he showed me his records. People lie with their mouths, but records are more honest. And this captain had a book that listed everyone on the boat and what they were paid.

Father was paid a year ago, and then he didn't come back. He didn't get on the boat again. I didn't know what to do. If he wasn't sailing, then where was he? I started crying—big English men always help when a little girl cries.

Except, the captain couldn't help. He didn't know where my father went or why. He said that a lot of bad things happen in Shanghai and that I should contact my family back in England. That was my only hope. Then he gave me a whole guinea, plus took me all the way back to the mission. I told him I could take a rickshaw. Even told him how I could get a free ride, but he insisted.

I should have run away then. I should have just escaped to crawl back into bed so no one would notice. But he wanted the nuns to know I had slipped out. Mother Francis was very polite to him, very thankful. She even promised him I wouldn't be punished. Ha! Like I said, everybody lies, even Mother Superiors.

But it was still worth it. I know my father's somewhere in Shanghai. Or at least he was. I think I'll go find Samuel Fitzpatrick on Tuesday when Sister Christine starts leading matins. She'll go to bed really early and fall right to sleep by seven. It'll be easier to slip away then.

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

from "Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment"

Chapter 6

The stench of opium filled the captain's quarters belowdecks. Zhi-Gang curled his lip against the smell even as his tongue noted the sweet taste of the smoke in a room unused to such things. Slamming the door shut behind him, he didn't need his glasses to see. He already knew what he would find: the captain, his wife, and their baby, all dozing in drugged sleep on the bed. Nearby, Jing-Li would be lounging across cushions, a silly grin on his smug face, a long thin opium pipe clutched in his hand.

"Where did you get it?" Zhi-Gang hissed as he stomped forward. With each step, his friend's dark form resolved into exactly what Zhi-Gang expected: a rich boy smoking in luxury. "Where did you find the opium?"

Jing-Li shrugged. "Payment. Bad luck to cheat boat people. They will curse our journey."

Zhi-Gang abruptly reached down and hauled his childhood friend up by the collar. Nose to nose, Zhi-Gang could see a sharpness in Jing-Li's red eyes that proved the man wasn't nearly as far gone as he pretended. "Where did you get it?"

"Do you have money for the captain?" Jing-Li challenged.

Zhi-Gang didn't answer. They both knew they had little money left. "We are on a mission! I am the Emperor's Enforcer! I kill people who commerce in this poison. You cannot go about
using
it!"

Jing-Li bared his teeth in response. Zhi-Gang dropped him back to the floor in disgust. He heard the opium pipe clatter to the floor and he whirled about to find it. There! He stomped forward, slamming his foot down on the bamboo and breaking it in two. He wanted to grind the shards against his heel, but the wood was too strong and his boot too soft. Instead, he felt a sharp piece stab into his skin and he drew back with a curse.

He had to twist his foot up so he could pull the sliver out while Jing-Li watched and laughed. It was a long, carefree giggle, filled with simple goodwill, and Zhi-Gang stopped what he was doing to squint at his friend. When was the last time the man had laughed like that? When had either of them felt happy and open, able to lounge upon the floor in simple pleasure? Months? Years?

"There is more if you want," said Jing-Li, his voice thicker and infinitely tempting. Then with a soft curse, the man leaned forward and abruptly jerked Zhi-Gang's foot forward. Unbalanced, Zhi-Gang half hopped, half stumbled to the bed, then waited in resigned silence as his friend pulled the sliver out of his foot.

"Jing-Li," Zhi-Gang pressed when the procedure was finished. "Where is the opium?"

His friend ignored him, choosing instead to twist sideways and grab another pipe, one that had fallen beside the bed, obviously used by the captain. Some of the powder still smoked at the far end. Zhi-Gang would have snatched the pipe away and smashed it as well, but Jing-Li's nimble fingers twirled it out of reach before he popped the end into his mouth.

"More for me," he said, then closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

Zhi-Gang felt his hands clench into fists. He could demand the truth. Under normal circumstances, Zhi-Gang could beat his friend in a fight. But what would be the point? Jing-Li had been smoking for at least an hour now. Even half-blind, Zhi-Gang could pin his friend in seconds; but to what end? The opium numbed Jing-Li's sensation to pain. Even a broken bone might not be enough to force Jing-Li to give up the location of his stash.

Fortunately, there were less direct ways of getting what he wanted. And besides, who could blame the man for taking one night's escape from reality? With the Emperor's incarceration, Jing-Li had lost everything—his good friend, his money, even his family. All of that had been abandoned on this flight to the south. At least Zhi-Gang had been poor as a child. He was used to privations and the endless pressure to succeed. Not so the wealthy, titled, and pampered Jing-Li.

With a sigh, Zhi-Gang turned his back on his friend and slipped out of the captain's chamber. He shouldn't have allowed Jing-Li to hide from his enemies as a servant. The Enforcer could have traveled with a friend or companion. Except that Zhi-Gang had never traveled with anyone but his servants, and often not even them. He worked alone, judged and executed the guilty alone. A companion would have been noticed by the Dowager Empress's spies. Jing-Li would have been discovered and killed.

So Jing-Li had become just another servant, while his friend the Enforcer continued searching for opium dealers, this time in Jiangsu. It was all perfectly normal, all perfectly hidden from their enemies. And truthfully, Zhi-Gang enjoyed the companionship. Well, he enjoyed his companion when Jing-Li was sober.

With a vehement curse, Zhi-Gang put on his glasses and began a slow, laborious search of the boat. He would find his friend's stash and he would destroy it. And then Jing-Li would return to the careful, intelligent scholar he once was. Away from temptation, starting in a new life outside of the Peking pleasure palaces, Jing-Li would become the man he was meant to be.

It took hours, but Zhi-Gang discovered the opium stash. It was in Sister Marie's tiny private locker. He should have looked there first, but he hadn't wanted to accept the truth. He had searched the rest of the boat, through the crew quarters and every nook and cranny imaginable. But in the end, he had surrendered to the inevitable.

He pulled out the runner's bag, seeing that it was only half full. Lifting it to his nose, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He smelled the sweet stench of opium, wet hemp from the coarse fabric, and overlaying it all, Sister Marie's unique scent. All hope that she was truly a nun died at that moment. She was a drug-runner and therefore doomed to death.